Started reading Edith Södergran's Modern Woman, published by World Poetry Books


The following poems are not from the collection, but they give a sense of Södergran's writing. She died in obscurity in 1923 at the age of 31, but she's now regarded as one of the most important Swedish-language poets of the 20th century.


Animalistic Hymn

The red sun rises
without intent
and shines the same on all of us.
We play like children under the sun.
One day, our ashes will scatter—
it doesn’t matter when.
Now the sun finds our innermost hearts,
fills us with oblivion
intense as the forest, winter and sea.


A Life

That the stars are adamant
everyone understands—
but I won’t give up seeking joy on each blue wave
or peace below every gray stone.
If happiness never comes, what is a life?
A lily withers in the sand
and if its nature has failed? The tide
washes the beach at night.
What is the fly looking for on the spider’s web?
What does a dayfly make of its hours?
(Two wings creased over a hollow body.)

Black will never turn to white—
yet the perfume of our struggle lingers
as each morning fresh flowers
spring up from hell.

The day will come
when the earth is emptied, the skies collapse
and all goes still—
when nothing remains but the dayfly
folded in a leaf.
But no one knows it.


Source: Poetry Magazine




I made my first sunburst granny square!



I gave my mother everything I had. The last month of her life, in which I cared for her in hospice, took everything. It drained me. It's been almost a year since her death, and I am still empty. I will be empty for a long time. But I am also slowly filling myself with as much beauty as I can find—crochet, films, poetry, words, music, silence, true connection. It's not total emptiness. It's like a field after harvest. Everything is gone, but I'm planting more seeds deep in the earth. They need time to grow. Who knows what they will become. I'm learning to trust myself, to rely on myself, to listen to my inner voice. I gave my mother everything inside me, and I would do it again. I loved her, cared for her, and protected her. I will never regret giving my life to her. But now my life is mine, and I have to figure out how to live it.